o2 carphone warehouse & free bolt ons

[bla bla bla]

Hi, I have sent the email below to CW today and wonder if anyone has any advice as to how I should proceed with this complaint??

 

EMAIL:

I have been a Carphone Warehouse / O2 customer for a number of years and I upgraded my mobile phone contract on 1 July 2008 and believe that my deal included a Nokia 6500s with unlimited texts and 600 minutes for £35 per month. I had noticed an unacceptable rise in the level of my bills and so have contacted customer services on numerous occasions to find out why. To avoid my bills rising I was advised to have an unlimited text bolt on added at a cost of around £6 per month. Last November I unfortunately had to have my mobile number changed due to incidents of harassment. I was told at the time that this was a free service in the first instance and wouldn’t affect my tariff etc. In June 2009 I received a call from customer services informing that I could save money by paying by direct debit. I told them that I had cancelled the direct debit because they had refused to change the direct debit date in the past to suit when I have money in my account. The lady said that she could change the billing cycle to change the date and did this for me.

When I received my last bill I contacted customer services again because my bills are still OVER £50 per month. I was advised by the lady (who I am told is in Portugal at the moment) that I should never have been paying for the additional bolt on because I have always had unlimited texts as part of my contract. She said she would call me back the next day to confirm that all the bolt-on charges would be refunded to my account. She never called me back.

I called again in the last week and spoke to Vicki. I tried to explain the situation and clarify exactly what my contract consists of. She put me on hold then came back confirming that the bolt on had been removed. I was cut off before I could explain to her that I wasn’t simply requesting the removal of this but querying the past charges for it as per my previous conversation with the lady who is now in Portugal.

I called back again and spoke to someone else and explained this to him again. He advised that I did have free unlimited texts (and a half price line rental cheque back offer that I wasn’t aware of) as part of my original upgrade in July 2008. He also advised that the unlimited texts were probably removed when I changed my number. I have not at any point been advised of this. I am at a loss at to what my contract now consists of. He also said he would contact the 2nd line department for advise and request a bill recalculation and call me back today. He hasn’t called me back.

I am now due another £52 for last months bill and my line has been restricted because I have not paid the bill and don’t intend to until I know what exactly I am paying for and until this matter is resolved. I now don’t know what tariff I am on or whether or not I have unlimited texts. I have been going round in circles trying to get answers to my queries and while the call centre staff appear to be helpful on the phone this is not demonstrated when they fail to call me back after promising that they will. I now can’t call them back either since my line is disconnected.

I would basically like to find out :

What my original upgraded contract terms / tariff were and if these have been changed at any point ??

If there have been changes – what are they and why wasn’t I informed of them ??

What are my terms / tariff now ??

The contract is up in December and I would like to continue with Carphone Warehouse / O2. However, I will have to seriously reconsider my custom if these issues cannot be resolved, especially since overall this contract has cost me a great deal more than originally expected and has not gave me any value for money in terms of what I have received or due to the poor quality of customer service.

Can you please point me in the right direction for having these matters looked into and/or how to get a straight answer to my queries ?

Any help you can provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

 

[buzby]

Your contract may well have changed, but if it had, they would have needed to draw your attention to it. However if your argument is about money, then this won;t be a contract item, but one of the Tariff - these will be available to view online (as well as the T&Cs applying to ALL contracts).

 

You may feel justified in saying 'I'm not paying' until you sort this - but they are reporting your non-action to a CRA, and as such it will look bad to other lenders, so you may wish to reconsider this. You can always seek compensatin for any overpayment later, without affecting your credit rating.

[bla bla bla]

Hi and thanks.

 

I have since received a reply after much pestering and apparently under my old contract I had an unlimited text bolt on which I paid for on top of my then lower tariff.

 

When I upgraded last year to a higher tariff which included promotional unlimited texts for free -they didn't bother removing the old bolt on (and didn't tell me this)- even though I didn't need it. I have queried this and they say because I didn't specifically ask for it to be removed that it would have remained forever or until I cancelled it despite changing to an upgraded contract, and expecting that this would be automatically superseded. So I have has double unlimited texts the whole time which is completely ludicrous. I'm not too bothered about the cra's since I won't be looking to get credit anytime soon and I'm only late by about a week at the moment.

 

They have offered to now add the free unlimited texts until the end of my contract (Dec) and cos this tariff isn't available anymore it will appear as a credit on my bill.

 

I am quite fed up with all their nonsense and have asked how to escalate my complaint further since 3/4 months benefit of what I should have been getting anyway doesn't stack up against 13 months of me paying for something that should have been included anyway. Especially since I have queried the higher bills all the way through my contract with them and was repeatedely palmed off -I couldn't work out what they had done- neither could they until I refused to pay my bill now.

 

I have also asked to see the terms and conditions which relate to bolt ons staying with you forever even when you upgrade because I can't find anything that mentions this so am totally confused as to how they expected me to psychically know this.

 

It's a bit of a joke really...sorry for the rant!

[bla bla bla]

Hi

 

Have had all bolt ons for last 13months refunded (as a credit) and restriction lifted and am now on a lower tariff and recieving the free unlimited text bolt on..

[locutus]

Result! well done